


Point Break

by AlamoGirl80



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:46:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlamoGirl80/pseuds/AlamoGirl80
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny may be the one with the headache, but it's Steve McGarrett who's been cold-cocked by love. Written for the h50_holidayswap challenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Point Break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zortified (james)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/gifts).



> This is for Zortified (James) who wanted Danny!Whump and possibly Danny getting hurt/sick and trying to hide it. Special thanks to **imaginarycircus** for the brainstorming on ideas and to **Caliecat** for the beta.

 

Steve’s fretting his bottom lip the entire drive, and if he isn’t careful, he’ll taste blood soon. This isn’t like Danny. Not like him at all. And Steve would be lying if he didn’t admit he’d been worried about Danny for a while now. Ever since he escaped from prison, really. The way his partner tried to hide his pain of the colossal fuck up that was his and Rachel’s relationship, purposely avoiding prolonged eye contact with Steve in Max’s lunchbox of a car… it made Steve’s gut knot up. 

The entire shitstorm that has been Steve’s life of late has been all-consuming, but that doesn’t mean Steve’s blind. Maybe a little nearsighted, but not blind.

Danny’s hurting. All the little mentions, or the outright complaints about his and Rachel’s debacle, hesitating when it came to asking the cute museum administrator out, the accusations that since Steve isn’t a father, he couldn’t possibly understand “Enemy Mine” – they all add up to Danny being in a very dark place.

Hell, now that he thinks about it, that shithole of all shitholes hotel room was one big metaphor for Danny’s outlook on life lately. And Steve kicks himself again for not nutting up and offering his house sooner. He would have, Christ knows he’s been thinking about asking Danny to crash at his place for longer than he’d care to admit.  But he was never sure Danny would accept and quite frankly, Steve’s been feeling the bite of a cold breeze wafting between his once warm friendship with Danny for a while now.

Steve checks his phone for any calls while his foot nudges the accelerator forward.

He knows the cooling off between them isn’t all Danny’s doing. After Governor Jameson, after his time at Halawa, Steve’s done a pretty nice fucking job of walling off the tendrils of hope and happiness he’s spent the last year and a half building. Danny was about to leave him… but then Danny stayed and _saved_ him and quite frankly, the whiplash was enough to make Steve retreat back into his shell of perfectly regimented orders and executions.

Maybe that’s why he felt more comfortable with Joe White… at least, before his name was just another added to the list of people to be suspected and treated with caution.

But now, things seem to be getting back on an even keel, even if having Danny under his roof 24-7 did take some getting used to. They laugh and joke more and some of the spark is returning to Danny’s eyes. Steve thought he was better off alone, with the solitude of the house not unlike the isolation of ad-seg at Halawa.

Having Danny there to bicker with, the push and pull between them as they figure out how to live with one another stems the loneliness that Steve doesn’t want to admit has been hanging over him like a woolen blanket for a very long time.

So, a phone call at midnight from a local bar asking Steve to come pick up his “very wasted” partner has Steve doing about 90 mph and his mind doing 150 racing through all the possibilities. A yellow light turns red and Steve plows through it, barely acknowledging the honks. He wracks his brain thinking of anything that happened during the day to set Danny off.

Nothing comes to mind, because, well, he did say please when that prick of a bank manager tried to close the door in his face. He even got a warrant and everything. More importantly, he said _please_ … but he ended up splintering the door anyway to obtain the records they needed for their case. Steve doesn’t think he heard Danny squawk too terribly much about it at the time, though. He’d seemed pretty damn impressed that Steve even knew how to fill out a request for a warrant.

The bar is one of those ubiquitous dives that no one remembers the name of and yet everyone seems to be able to find because it’s got cheap booze and it’s close to everything. Inside, the place reeks of cigarettes, stale beer and despair; even the juke box is playing something morose.

The cherry on the top of the cliché is when Steve spies his Danny, hunched over the end of the bar with an empty tumbler cradled in his hand next to a half empty mug of beer, squinting at the small flat screen above the bar. The Giants and Patriots are battling it out on the screen and Steve has to work not to jump when Danny suddenly explodes in a cussing fit at the referees.

“Come on! What the fuck was that?”

Steve can hear Danny slurring from twenty feet away.

“Hey, Danno.” Steve sidles up to his partner, trying to gauge how many drinks he’s had.

Red rimmed blue eyes finally fix on Steve and Danny’s mouth twists into a smirk. “Figures. And to what do I owe the pleasure, partner?”

There’s an extended slur on “pleasure” and yep, Steve’s sure he’s never seen Danny this drunk before. He reaches out a hand to steady the other man on his stool and is somewhat stung when Danny shrugs it off.

Steve gives the bartender a pointed look, but the old man just shrugs and moves away. Then Steven turns to Danny. “Came to give you a ride home, buddy.”

“Don’t need it. Not leaving yet.”

Steve sighs. He was hoping Danny would be a compliant drunk. “Yeah, I really think you do, man.”

Danny swigs the last of his beer and contemplates the bottom of the glass. “You know what I would love, Steven? I would love it if for one day… one fucking day… you would listen to me. Just once. Take what I am saying to heart.”

Steve swallows hard. Whatever has brought this on is intense, which means one of two people: Rachel or Grace. He’s really hoping it’s not Rachel because, well, Steve just isn’t comfortable talking about Rachel these days. He doesn’t think he can hold his temper in check, not any more. Not after having to endure that lost, hopeless look in Danny’s eyes after Rachel snatched the prospect of another child and a family out of his partner’s grasp.

“I do listen to you, Danny,” Steve tries, voice sounding smaller than he intended. Because really, Danny has no idea how much power he holds over Steve. He has no fucking clue how much everything he says, even if it’s a ridiculous rant, means to Steve because without it, Steve’s alone in his own head with his own thoughts which, let’s face it, haven’t been that cheerful lately.

“Oh, you listen to me? Yeah, you are such a great listener. I tell you to wait for a warrant, you kick in doors.”

“I _had_ a warrant, it’s not my fault if the guy slams–”

Danny holds up a finger, shushing him. “I tell you not to break into the governor’s house… and what do you do?”

Steve sinks further onto the stool, jaw tensing and now that fifth of scotch across the way is looking mighty good.

“You break out of prison,” Danny continues, ignoring the way his partner avoids eye contact, “you fly off to hostile communist countries and nearly get yourself killed…”

Danny gives the bartender a hard glare and the other man seems to size up the situation — two pissed off cops —and decides it’s in his best interest to give Danny his last shot. Danny swallows it down without even a grimace and shakes his head.

“It’s fucking killing me, y’know? This worrying.”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose because he should have expected this. He _was_ expecting this, on some level, he supposes. Everything that has happened in the last couple of months finally coming home to roost and well, he wondered what would be Danny’s breaking point. The point where he’d finally say, “fuck this ride, I want off” and leave.

Something hot and strangling wraps itself around Steve’s heart and for a second, he thinks he’s having a panic attack. But he’s built to endure all manner of torture, even if the physical kind is always easier to deal with, so he manfully swallows down the bile rising in his throat and looks at his partner.

Danny’s got his forehead resting in one hand, while the other hand draws circles in the condensation on the bar.

Steve leans toward him, places a hand on his shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze because he wants to try to fix this if he can. He’s _got_ to fix this.

“Look, man. I’m sorry, okay? But you know I had to follow Wo Fat’s trail, wherever it leads.”

Danny looks at him from half-hooded eyes. “Shockingly, Ahab, this isn’t all about you. Although yes, you are going to put me in an early grave. From a bullet or from an ulcer, dealer’s choice.”

Steve’s brain clanks to a halt and he knows he’s sitting there with a stupid expression because Danny cracks a smirk before heaving a world-weary sigh.

“Me and Grace had a… had a fight today,” says Danny, dejectedly. “Something stupid about school and her wanting to go to England for a month with Rachel. I said no.”

Steve honestly doesn’t know what to do: hurt for Danny, because he’s acutely aware of how much his partner needs his little girl in his life as much as possible, or dance for joy that, for the moment, his Danno isn’t leaving him.

Deciding that the happy dance might get his jaw broken, Steve concentrates on the problem at hand.

“Wait, did you talk to Rachel? Don’t you have a visitation schedule?” Steve asks.

“Yes and yes. But I don’t have a lot of choice when my little girl wants to go, now do I?” Danny chews his bottom lip and all Steve can do is give his shoulder a squeeze before letting his hand fall away.

“She said she hated me.”

The words are mumbled and the dull roar of the bar is pressing down on them but Steve hears the catch in Danny’s voice when he says them. Suddenly, that vice is around Steve’s heart again for an entirely different reason, and he wonders if Danny will let him draw him into a hug right there in front of everyone. Steve really wishes he’d let him

“What?”

Danny runs a hand over the stubble of his jaw. “She said… she hated me. When I told her I didn’t want her to go. She really had her heart set on London and big, mean Danno was standing in her way.”

“She doesn’t mean it, Danny. You know that. Isn’t saying ‘I hate you’ a prerequisite for nearing the teen years or something?” Steve asks.

The look Danny gives him could sear flesh from bone.

“She’s ten! Ten! She’s got three years before I have to deal with teen issues, fuck you very much.”

Steve holds his hands up. “Okay, okay.”

“And thank you for reminding me of the joys to come, Steven. Thank you _so_ much. Now I really need another drink.” And Danny means to get one, but nearly falls over the bar reaching for the bottle of scotch the bartender left nearby.

“Okay man, I think this is officially your cut-off point,” Steve says, holding onto Danny’s shoulder before the other man topples off his stool.

Danny sways lightly, having missed grabbing the scotch and blinks at Steve a few times. After digging the heel of his hand into his eye socket for a moment, he relents.

“Yeah. I think you may be right, babe.”

Steve smiles to himself, relishing the small win. He really didn’t want to have to manhandle a belligerently drunk Danny back to his truck. So he slaps a couple of bills on the counter to cover whatever Danny hadn’t paid for and with one hand on Danny’s shoulder, he starts to steer him toward the exit.

Steve’s already planning his next attack, pouring plenty of coffee down Danny and if allowed, maybe hanging out on the couch all night beside him. Just in case his partner needs him, of course.

Figures that all hell would break loose right when Steve thinks he’s home free.

It starts with some shouting that rises above the din of music and clanking glasses. Even drunk as shit Danny senses something is up and halts their forward progress to the door. Looking back toward an alcove of booths surround the pool table area, Steve sees a guy who’s at least 6-foot-4 hauling a girl who maybe weighed 100 pounds soaking wet up by the arm and shaking her so hard her head snapped backwards.

Danny’s already making his way to the incident before Steve can even react.

“Hey asshole, there a problem here?” Danny asks, fishing for his badge as Steve comes to stand next to him.

A quick assessment of the situation and Steve knows this isn’t going to be easy. The asshole in question has two friends of equal size sitting in the booth behind them, and they don’t look like the types to just sit things out.

“Private discussion, keep walking,” the big guy spits out as he gives his girlfriend one last shove into the pool table.

“You know, that’s just rude.” Danny turns to Steve. “It’s rude, isn’t it? I mean, I asked nicely, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did, Danny.”

“Right.” Danny sways a little, but he’s managing the booze in his system and his normal cocky stance pretty damn well. “So, hows about you leave the girl alone and walk away, buddy.”

Danny’s maneuvered himself between the ape and the girl, and Steve’s taking a flanking position when the first swing comes. Steve’s shocked his partner manages to duck the first blow, but isn’t prepared for the crack of the cue stick that comes down across Danny’s head.

The rest is a blur of fists, elbows, cracked jaws and broken noses, because when Steve gets going these days, it’s hard to stop. And a good, old fashioned bar fight brings out something feral inside him that he’d kept carefully leashed during his time in prison. It feels so fucking good to let go.

Steve’s the last one standing, blood all over his new polo and a split lip for his trouble, but none of that matters when he sees Danny out cold near the pool table.

There’s a gash on his temple and blood seeping down into the collar of that shirt that Steve’s always thought brought out his eyes in a most distracting way.

“Danny? Hey, buddy, you okay?” Steve cradles his partner’s face in his hands.

Two bleary blue eyes finally open. “Ouch,” is all Danny says.

Danny doesn’t move for a good while, which worries Steve no end. He doesn’t know if it was the blow to the head – because Danny’s got a hell of a knot forming – or if it’s the scotch keeping his partner down. Finally, after several colorful curses, Danny heaves himself up and braces against the pool table. Steve, being the level headed guy he is, wants to call an ambulance.

“No. I’m good,” Danny mumbles, although he looks a little green around the gills now.

“We should get you checked out, D.”

“Says the guy who uses sticks and gun tape to splint his own arm.”

“That was different. That was wilderness survival training and–”

Danny holds up a finger and touches a hand to the blood on the side of his head. “Shush. You are not helping the headache, babe.”

The paramedics do arrive, mostly to clean up the other guys so HPD can book them and Danny consents to let a medic tape up the gash on his head. The guy flashes a light in Danny’s eyes, and Steve thinks his partner will throw up just from that.

“The medic said you could have a concussion,” Steve persists as they head to the truck.

“I’m drunk, Steve. That’s all. No concussion.” Danny waves a hand at the road and leans back to close his eyes. “Home, James.”

That night, Steve makes as much noise as possible every couple of hours to stir Danny awake on the couch. He just isn’t sure where the alcohol ends and brain injury begins, but he figures better safe than sorry.  Danny waves away any attempt Steve makes at checking his wounds, so all he can do is offer some pain meds and plenty of water, before settling in the recliner to doze.

He’ll stay in that chair all night, God knows, he’s slept in less comfortable places. This way, he’s close…just in case.

 -----------------------------------

Danny’s a special shade of pissy the next morning, moving around like he’s a hundred years old and shielding his eyes from the morning sun coming through the kitchen window. He refuses the eggs Steve makes for him, settling for coffee alone and barely says three words to Steve on the way to work.

Normally, Steve would be grateful for the quiet, but now his concern is eating his insides. Every attempt at conversation is met with a single reply, as though the act of talking hurts Danny too much.

“I told you, for the hundredth time, I’m fine, Steven. Hangovers happen.” Danny grits out as they head to their call-out at a resort.

“Look, not that I don’t enjoy the less verbose Danny Williams,”— that earns Steve a glower — “But you took a pretty nice hit to the head last night. I think you should go get checked out.”

“Okay, next time you get shot and proceed to run around the island like a bona fide idiot, bleeding all the way, while I tell _you_ to get checked out, I’m going to remind you of this,” Danny waves his hand ineffectually, “this weird _mothering_ thing you’re doing.”

Steve sets his jaw. “I’m just looking out for you.”

“So how come when I do it to you, you call me a nag?”

“Because I do it with a lot more finesse,” Steve says with a smirk and is rewarded with a wan smile from Danny.

“Oh, finesse. I love it. Steve ‘do what I say or I pummel you’ McGarrett and finesse in the same sentence. That’s fabulous,” Danny says with a chuckle.

They reach the crime scene, a tourist gunned down at the Hilton lagoon, before Steve can try to finagle Danny to the doctor. Everything seems to be running smoothly as they start to question witnesses, when Steve hears a commotion and realizes Danny’s nowhere to be seen.

Fear coils in his stomach as he runs toward the crowd of onlookers and spots his partner crouched on the ground, throwing up. Steve doesn’t know if someone hit him or what, but when Danny falls over and passes completely out, Steve starts to panic.

“Danny!”

His partner’s face is pasty white, huge dark circles look like fresh bruises under his eyes and his breathing is shallow and ragged.  He doesn’t respond to Steve’s touch or his frantic calls. A rookie cop runs up and Steve snaps at him to call for a bus.

Then Danny’s breathing becomes more labored and shit, Steve can’t wait. He hauls Danny’s prone form up onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and runs back to the Camaro. Once Steve maneuvers him into the passenger’s seat, Danny’s slumped form rests against the passenger side door, head bowed against his chest, hair limp with sweat.

The Camaro’s engine roars as Steve speeds to the closest hospital, chanting a mantra of “Don’t you do this, Danny. You’ll be okay” under his breath. When he isn’t swerving through lights and traffic, Steve reaches over and touches his partner’s face, his chest, just to feel the air moving in and out.

Once inside the hospital, Danny is taken away from him and Steve is left in the lobby, feeling sickeningly lost and disconnected. Chin, Kono and Lori arrive soon, all asking questions that Steve is sure he answers but he can’t remember the words.

He rubs his sweaty palms against his cargos and his stomach rolls with the memories of the sarin poisoning. Should he call Rachel and Grace? But they’re in Europe….

Then the doctor arrives and tells them that Danny’s in a room and stable. The crack on the head did cause a moderate concussion and that mixed with the alcohol in his system depressed his respiratory system.

Steve’s caught between being so relieved he feels faint and being so angry he wants to go bash in the other side of Danny’s skull for not listening to him.  In the end, he opts to go to Danny’s room.

It stinks of antiseptic and disease and reminds Steve of why he so very much hates hospitals. Danny’s tucked into bed, pale and drawn and Steve has to swallow the lump in his throat that is probably his heart. Something as simple as a hit to the head and yet, Danny could be gone. Just like that.

The doctor said Danny is sedated and on pain meds, but should be able to go home in the next day or so. Steve sits in the chair next to the bed and lets his head fall into his hands. Just like that. It’s not a bullet or some exotic poison that makes him realize losing his partner might mean the end of Steve as well, just a simple crack upside the head.

Steve starts to laugh because it’s either that or start sobbing and he really doesn’t want to have to explain that to the nurses when they return. Danny will be fine, after all.

Steve, however, won’t be. He chuckles again under his breath. Steve McGarrett, cold-cocked by love.

“My injury is funny to you?”

Steve’s head snaps up to find Danny looking at him with that same slightly goofy smile he wore the last time Steve saw him in a hospital bed.

“Hey Danno,” Steve says, because his throat is tight and his eyes are blurry and damn, maybe he’s allergic to something in here.

“Hey yourself. You okay?” Danny asks and it’s just not right, him asking Steve that when he’s the one who couldn’t breathe earlier. “What’s with the face?”

Steve shakes his head, bemusedly. “Again with my faces. You’re obsessed with naming my faces.”

“I am not obsessed, it’s just that sometimes you suck with the communication thing so I have to decode your goofy faces.”

“I’m not the one who ignored a concussion and nearly suffocated in my own vomit recently,” Steve says, scooting closer to the bed.

Danny’s face goes shocked, then aggravated. “Aw shit. My record’s been shot to hell now. 1996, Steven. I haven’t puked since 1996.”

“Well, you puked all over Hilton Hawaiian’s lovely beach this morning.”

“I hate your face. Really.”

Danny sighs and rubs a hand over his face in defeat. He looks so very tired, but Steve can’t help but lean in, taking Danny’s hand in his. He’ll analyze what all this means later, for now, all he wants is some form of contact.

“Head still hurt?”

Danny sighs, “Yeah, it’s been downgraded from subatomic explosions behind my eyes to merely herd of elephants rampaging between my ears.”

Steve looks down at their hands. “Next time I tell you to get your head checked out, do me a favor and listen.”

He thinks Danny will joke it off, but Steve hopes his somber plea hits home. Because, he’s just not trained for this. There’s only so much loss a guy can take before it breaks him beyond all repair.

A squeeze of his hand and Steve looks up. Danny leans over as best he can and locks eyes with him.

“Hey, I get it, okay?” Danny rubs his thumb across Steve’s knuckles in slow, soothing circles.

Steve lets out the breath he’s been holding for months now. “Okay.”

Danny’s eyes start to droop about the same time Steve gets enough courage to reach up and run his fingers through Danny’s mussed hair. His partner smiles into the touch like a cat seeking a good stroke, before he’s snoring two seconds later.

Steve leans over and places a small, soft kiss on Danny’s forehead before leaning his own head against Danny’s. He closes his eyes for a moment, thanks Whoever’s listening for cutting him a break this once, and then settles back in the chair.

Steve will worry about tomorrow later. For now, the warmth of Danny’s hand, the feel of the calluses, the veins and the life within it is enough to soothe Steve to sleep.

 **END**


End file.
